The Celtic Languages in the Modern World

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

IC - University of Galway, Ireland: The Celtic languages remain media of communication to a greater or lesser extent in communities scattered on the western fringe of twenty-first century Europe, in Ireland, Britain and Brittany. They are the survivors of a history traceable over two and a half thousand years encompassing, at one time, nearly the whole of western Europe and much of central and eastern Europe. The modern Celtic languages interact in various ways with the societies in which they are embedded, the official and unofficial institutions of those societies (government, legislation, industry, etc.), and with the wider cultures of the countries where they are used. The module will introduce the student to the study of the Celtic languages in these contexts, the sociolinguistics of the Celtic languages, and consider the ways in which they are endangered as languages of the lives and thoughts of the people who use them. It will also consider ways in which their existence and status can be strengthened and expanded, through language planning.